Public Denied Comment on Resource Management Plans

Oct 7, 2008

Beartooth Front is slated for oil and natural gas development in Wyoming. Photo by Bruce Gordon, Courtesy EcoFlight.

Twelve recently released land management plans for Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming are getting quite a reaction. They exclude an opportunity for the public to protest, in order to speed the development of oil shale.

“This administration willingly sacrificed good governance in favor of using their last days in office to fork more public lands over to the oil and gas industry,” said Nada Culver, senior counsel for The Wilderness Society’s (TWS) BLM Action Center. “In this case, the BLM denied the public its basic right to protest land management plans that could affect their ways of life. Unfortunately, this denial also violates federal law.”

Nearly 105,000 comments were submitted in response to the previous Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) earlier this year, indicating significant public concern over the contents of these plans, and no adjustments were made as a result.